Even prior to the devastating LA wildfires, I was dreading 2025. And the news in just over two weeks into the new year – when Trump hasn’t even taken office yet! – is dire. Trump is poised to appoint vaccine denier RFK Jr. to lead the Department of Health at a time when long-eradicated childhood diseases may surge (mumps and German measles anyone?) and avian flu is emerging. Having donated to soon-to-be 47s campaign and spent lavishly on his inauguration, Facebook is removing fact checking (aka censoring fake news and hate speech), a particularly disastrous move at a time when social media platforms are the primary news sources for many. As Lina Kahn exits the FTC, crypto is surging, increasing both its contribution to climate change and the risk of another SBF-style fraud (bye bye consumer protections!) And McCarthyesque monster Tom Homan is poised to take over ICE. The list goes on and on and on.
What’s the art world to do as painter’s studios explode in flames, destroying years of work at the very same time that the values that many of us hold so dear are being brutally challenged? Over 90 LA artists lost their homes and studios in the Altadena area of LA. The artist community immediately stepped up, creating resources like this https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-rebuild-the-lives-of-las-artists-and-art-workers and galleries and museums followed suit shortly thereafter with a fund whose application opens on Monday, January 20 here: https://www.cciarts.org/ ; when they’ll be able to rebuild – and start creating works again - is unclear since fires continue to burn. And while I was heartened to hear of clothing drives, both near the destroyed sites and in NYC where I’m based, I can’t help but wonder where the people we’re clothing will live, go to school and go about their lives.
And what of art? Both galleries and museums plan their programming months or even years ahead of time, so what we’re seeing in both venues isn’t necessarily indicative of the present moment. Positive developments that will outlive Trump 1.0 predominate; an example is the current solo show of the young British artist Emil Sands at the blue chip Chelsea gallery Kasmin. Sands’ masterfully executed seascapes are mostly peopled with beautiful, swim trunk-clad boys. And while the works stand alone on their merits, when you learn about the artist’s biography – he was born with mild cerebral palsy – his choice to depict healthy bodies takes on new resonance. The Jane Cohan-curated Beyond the Bedroom at James Cohan gallery offers up a saucy suggestion of escapism and highlights the self-care we’ll need to survive. Where better to spend the next four years than with our heads in the sand (or deeply embedded in a pillow with a loved one)?
As far as institutions go, Rashid Johnson’s mid-career exhibition will open at the Guggenheim in March. Market darling though he may be, his works speak powerfully to the Black Lives Matter movement. The Whitney is currently running a landscape show featuring artists who choose this genre in order to address with ecological, social and political concerns and a solo of deaf sound artist Christine Sun Kim opens next month. And the Met’s Flight into Egypt exhibition comprehensively ties together the ancient and the new; the inclusion of the work of a museum guard in the show outlined here https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/08/nyregion/egyptian-artist-metropolitan-museum-exhibit.html is particularly poignant.
Please visit my substack: https://tanya195.substack.com/p/art-in-the-early-days-of-trump-20